Mr. FOSTER.

When the Minister of Finance is making his budget speech he gives his statement of revenue and expenditure and he immediately supplements that by stating the capital expenditure. If that were not done we would have no knowledge of the real financial state of the country. I suggested we can have no knowledge of the true position of the Intercolonial unless we have a statement of the capital expenditure and when I ask for that my hon. friend flies off at a tangent.

Mr. GRAHAM.

Your hon. friend did not fly off at all ; my hon. friend is wrong about that. I am only purporting to give the House the receipts and expenditure of the Intercolonial, and not the capital expenditure, and my case is entirely different from that of the Minister of Finance making a budget speech. I don't like to have the insinuation made that I am refusing to give information, because I think the House will admit that, such is not my habit.

Mr. FOSTER.

Then, will the minister give the information? I

Mr. GRAHAM.

I will get the information for my hon. friend and it can be discussed in committee which is the proper place to discuss it. Now that we understand each other may I be permitted to proceed?

There are certain difficulties in connection with a government-owned railway and I am not going to minimize these difficulties. To those hon. gentlemen who are new to this House and who have not had their minds in any way biased by the discussions on the Intercolonial Railway from a political standpoint, I want to appeal, on one oi two business points.

One point is that the method adopted by the House and by parliament-and I am not complaining of that method-in compelling the Intercolonial to publish and send broadcast throughout the country every detailed item of its expenditure, is unfair to the railway. There is not another railway on

the continent of America whose expenditures are so exposed. I have had occasion to get reports from other railways, and I point out that the Intercolonial Railway is handicapped in its buying of materials and supplies by the fact that every dealer in Canada and possibly on the continent is in a position to know just what we bought last year, and what we paid for it. The members of the House ought to have that information in the fullest degree so as to be able to criticise the buying and the expenditures of the government, but I submit that it is a handicap to the government-owned railway that every dealer in every kind of supplies to be sold to that railway has to-day in his hands the number of pounds or yards or tons bought last year, from whom bought, and the amount we paid for them. It is regrettable, but it i-* true that people in trade have certain understandings all over Canada. John Jones knows to-day what William Smith got for everything he sold to the Intercolonial Railway. He knows what the Intercolonial Railway bought and paid last year. Having that information the two dealers get their heads together, and if the price last year was. too low then no matter how many tenders we may advertise for, we cannot get a price lower than they had agreed among themselves to charge. The Grand Trunk can go to a company or a dealer and say: We want all these goods. Then the dealer need not observe the agreement with other dealers so particularly as he would where the details are placed on record and published broadcast. No dealer will sell to the government for less than he has agreed with other dealers to charge for such goods because he knows that the price he gets will come to the eyes of the other dealer the minute the Auditor General's Report is published. That handicap does not exist on any other railway and no other railway would tolerate it.

Here is another handicap with reference to which I appeal to business men. The Grand Trunk or the Canadian Pacific Railway will go to a large dealer who perhans during the year has a large amount of freight to carry. The officials of that railway will say to him: We want so many

goods of a certain kind, what will you let us have them at? The dealer has to give them at a risht price. No tenders are asked for but the goods are bought at a right figure and they are bought with the consideration that this particular concern will give that railway the carriage of their freight. Under the tender system we have to ask for prices publicly and we have to buy from the lowest tenderer. The result is that we often buy large quantites of goods from men who never give us a pound of freight, and as the result of buying

from these men, we lose the freight of their competitors, who perhaps tendered at a higher price but who have a large amount of freight on the line. The tender system is all right in theory but in running an institution like a railway you are handicapped, as I said, by the publication of the details of every purchase, and by having to purchase from the lowest tenderer, no matter how much freight the railway may lose from some other competitor who would have given the goods at a fair price.

I how come to another question with which my hon. friend dealt the other night. This situation stares us in the face-and I want to approach it without wincing or shrinking. I may be right or I may be wrong, but I give my opinion for what it is worth. As I said, the Grand Trunk Pacific will soon have its line through the maritime provinces. The Canadian Pacific Railway now has its line there. Unless some arrangement is made by which the Intercolonial Railway will become the outlet for some transcontinental line, the Intercolonial Railway will only be a local road for all time to come, and there is not enough local traffic to keep it going on a paying basis. That is my opinion. Conditions have changed, years have come and gone; there was a time when the Intercolonial Railway had all the trade of the maritime provinces, anything that came to Montreal, Quebec or Levis, had to get into the maritime provinces over the Intercolonial Railway, and we had a portion of all this trade whether it was through trade or maritime provinces' trade. Now, we have the Canadian Pacific Railway, we will soon have the Grand Trunk Pacific, and these being fed by their own two lines and having to feed their own two lines, will not give us any traffic that they can possibly help. That means that they will give us no through traffic at all. I believe that if the Intercolonial Railway is to be made the road it should be, if we are to maintain it as a proposition in the interests of the people and to make it pay its way it will have to be hooked up with a through line from the west, which will feed it with east bound traffic and which it can feed with west bound traffic.

That brings me to the point of branch lines, a question of deep interest to the people of Canada in every part. I repeat that my opinions may be right or wrong, I think they are right. In order that there may be no mistakes as to my position on this point, and that I may not say something that really does not express the full view I hold, I trust the House will bear with me if I read a few lines which I have jotted down.

The question of branch lines is one that must shortly be faced, as it does not need

an authority on transportation and railway traffic to understand that there can be no prosperous main line unless it is fed by branches stretching out into adjacent territory.

The Canadian Pacific Railway is now in the east, the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway is going there, and if the Intercolonial Railway is to maintain its fair share of trade it will have to see that it gets some of the feeders.

There is no use shrinking from the situation. Either the government must ere long be prepared to acquire some of its feeders and build new ones or it must hand over the management of the Intercolonial to some company that will do so. It will not be fair either to the railway or the section of the country served by it in face of the changed condition, to very much longer continue to occupy the present position.

Companies recognize the necessity of branch lines, and that is why in the west there is almost, at the present time, a struggle to cover the territory with branch lines. If the Grand Trunk Pacific is to be the success it is hoped, it will have to see that it has a sufficient number of feeders to keep its trunk line busy.

I think I am safe in saying that if a company owned the Intercolonial it would immediately proceed to pick out some of the best branch lines and absorb them, as well as build others, and it is possibly not going too far to say that if we were prepared to lease the Intercolonial Railway to a company, any company desiring to get such a lease, as a condition of it, would agree to take over such branches and build others. This is my view of the situation, and while present conditions do not warrant the government in launching out on the acquisition of existing branch lines, and the construction of new ones, the time cannot be far distant when the government will be forced to take one of two positions: either to adopt the policy of expansion itself or in the interests of the road and the country it serves lease the railway to some company that will adopt these business-like measures.

I have dealt at some length with the Intercolonial Railway and the railway problem. I may have expressed views that do not coincide with those of members of the House. The views I have expressed are mine, I am prepared to defend them and I think they are founded on common sense.

What are we going to do with the road? A good deal of discussion has taken place as to what we are going to do in regard to its management. Let me say that among the officials of the Intercolonial Railway are many first-class railway men, men who are giving the country good service. It has struck me that possibly the Intercolonial Railway, having been a government-owned road so many years, having had to combat some of the conditions to Mr. GRAHAM.

which I have referred, may have possibly got into a rut, and that we might get it out of that rut by making some changes. I do not mean by changes the dismissal of officers, but what I have in my mind is this, and I shall state it frankly, and it will be an experiment if carried out. There is no use disguising the fact that such will be the situation, if the plan I have in mind be put into effect. It will be an experiment, but one I think well worth trying, and which should bring good results. My proposition is this: Not to establish a

commission. I have studied that a good deal; and if I do not favour that solution, it is not at all because my bon. friend (Mr. R. L. Borden) advocates it. I have gone into the question of the management of the Australian railways, and I came to the conclusion that, as a minister of the Crown, with a railway under government supervision and management, two conditions confronted me. In the first place, I was not prepared, as minister of the Crown, to admit that the Crown itself, through proper means, could not manage a government railway. In the second place, I did not think the country would be prepared to say that the government ought to divest itself of the responsibility which the people had entrusted to its hands. Having that view, I made up my mind to make this proposition and give it a fair trial. That proposition is to establish a board, not responsible to parliament-that is, not directly responsible- but responsible to the government of the day, whatever government that may be- responsible to the government through a minister of the Crown, because after all we may say about commissions, this fact remains that the people will hold whatever government is in power responsible for the management of the Intercolonial Railway so long as it is owned by the government. There is no use in our trying to get away from the inevitable. Any government must retain the responsibility, and any minister of railways must accept full responsibility. On that board I propose to retain two of the officials, now on the Intercolonial Railway, in very high places.

I propose also to allow Mr. Butler, the Deputy Minister of Railways, to act on that board, and I would call it, not a commission, not an advisory board, but a board of management. 1 propose as well to appoint on that board a man, whom I have not selected, from one or the other of the great railways-not an over expensive man, but a man with a good practical, level head, who would bring with him the knowledge and experience be had acquired on one of the great lines and add these to the knowledge and experience' possessed by the officials on our line of railway. This board would have the management of the road, and be responsible, as a general

manager would be, to the government. My idea was that this board would have to meet my deputy at least every thirty days and give a full and complete report and information of everything done on the line, so that the minister would know at all times what was going on and what was being done. Would this relieve the minister of the responsibility? Not of one iota. The minister must retain all responsibility, but it would relieve him and his deputy of a multitude of details which now come here and which ought never to get beyond the head office at Moncton. We have today details coming to the department at Ottawa, which never go to the president of a railway company, which never get by the general manager, and three-fourths of which never get to the general manager. But a condition has grown up on the government owned railway for which nobody is to blame; and little details, instead of being settled on the spot by men detailed and paid for that purpose, keep filtering through by some means to the head office and to the Minister of Railways, until our department is at present flooded by these matters which ought never to reach it. This board would be given power to settle these minor affairs without reference to the department at all. This would be a good thing for the railway, it would be a good thing for the men, and a great relief to the department.

I have kept the House too long. I have expressed my views fully, and I know that they will receive that consideration which this House is always ready to give a statement of this kind. There are many sides to this question which I might discuss and discuss at some length, but the question of transportation is so broad that it is impossible to enter, as far as one would like, into a discussion of its many phases. I assure the House that anything done, will be done with the interests of the Intercolonial Railway at heart, and above all with the object of giving _the people, whom this railway was built to serve, the best service at a minimum cost.

Hon. JOHN HAGGART (South Lanark).

My hon. friend the Minister of Railways, in his opening remarks, dealt with the general question of transportation which is always a very interesting one. He spoke of the immense resources of this country, how they were being developed, and of the public anxiety for better transportation facilities than we have at present. He spoke to us at some length about the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Canadian Northern Railway and the present railway in embryo the Grand Trunk Pacific. He referred also to our different canal enterprises or water transportation. Regarding the later I have particular views which I may as well take this opportunity of stating.

Two or three years ago I explained to the House that the solution of the problem of cheap transportation was a better water communication for the west. In that connection I instanced the different countries which had adopted that system-Germany, France, Austria, Belgium and latterly the United States. I drew attention to the speech of ex-president Roosevelt in favour of water communications and its necessity in the United States, and also to the speech of Sir Thomas Shaughnessy in the same direction. Nature has given us on the continent of North America a proper line of communication for transportation purposes from the centre of the continent to the Atlantic ocean, if we will only avail ourselves of it. If we take advantage of what nature has given us, we will not only control the transportation of the products of the great republic but also of a greater fertile area than is to be found in any other part of the globe, namely, the area which is contiguous to the St. Lawrence river and the great lakes down to lake Michigan and Superior. There you have an immense section of fertile country which produces men of the Anglo Saxon race ; and if the people who inhabit that country would avail themselves of the means of transportation afforded by nature, they would control the destinies of this great continent. I have said before that water communication in no way interferes with communication by rail. Sir Thomas Shaughnessy said that this doctrine had been laid down so clearly by President Roosevelt that it was useless for him to dwell on it. According to that doctrine, in order to carry the heavy freight, it is necessary to have a cheap system, and that is to be found in water transportation.

I have shown that, with an expenditure of $100,000,000, we could have water communication, practically sea communication, from the Atlantic to the upper lakes, giving us control of the water transportation of this part of the continent. The deputy Minister of Railways and Canals has proposed another thing : Seeing the advantage of water transport, and being aware of the interest that is taken in this matter throughout the west, he proposes the deepening of the Welland canal. Let me show in a word the fallacy of that. We have expended on Port Colborne already in the neighbourhood of between $3,000,000 and $4,000,000 in order to provide facilities so that vessels from the upper lakes may tranship to smaller vessels for transport eastward. The effect of deepening the Welland canal would be simply to move this point of transhipment from Colborne to Kingston. The expense of carrying the svstem further would be prohibitory. Does tlie minister or does his deputy know what it would cost to deepen the St. Lawrence so

as to make a channel of full depth to Montreal? The evidence on that subject was given before the Transportation Commission. The testimony of the best engineer then living in reference to these subjects, Mr. Wisner-I am sorry to say he has since departed this life-was to the effect that the cost of making a channel deep enough for ocean-going vessels from Kingston to Montreal would be in the neighbourhood of $200,000,000, or double the cost of building the Georgian Bay canal, a route which would be about 450 miles shorter than the other. However, that is incidental to the general question of transportation. I would not have dealt with it had not the minister introduced the subject in his opening remarks.

The hon. gentleman next dealt with the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. He has built a branch road from Levis to Moncton that will be finished next year. Now, how is he going to utilize it? Is it to be worked by the Grand Trunk Pacific? It has no connection with the main line. Is it to be run by the government in opposition to the Intercolonial? The minister (Mr. Graham) hinted that he was considering a proposition of ferry boats at Levis pending the erection of the bridge. He tells us that the plans for the bridge will not be finished for a year or a year and a half. At that rate, the bridge cannot be completed in less than six or seven years. Are we to depend upon a ferry to connect the Levis-Moncton road with the rest of the system? I think the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) and the leader of the government (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) must now see the folly of constructing a road which will be quite useless as part of the transcontinental system for seven or eight years to come. But, so far as the bridge is concerned, we have in this an instance of the government's paternal care for certain corporations. A corporation was formed to build this bridge. It induced the government to subsidize the work. A catastrophe happened to the bridge-it fell down. One would have supposed that the parties particularly interested in the loss of the bridge would be those who had stock in the corporation that was chartered to construct the work. But these gentlemen did not suffer a single cent; the government took over the whole of their stock at its face value with interest. Now, we come to the construction of the road. We had a statement from the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding)-not the celebrated statement backing up that of his leader that the road would only cost the country about $13,000,-000-but a statement made in his saner moments to the effect that the road would cost in the neighbourhood of $38,000 per mile. The government now come down with the statement, that after revision of | the plans of construction, they find it will Mr. J. G. HAGGART.

cost $63,000 per mile. We have entrusted the construction of that road to a commission, supposed to be composed of gentlemen who were capable of taking charge of this construction, looking after the estimates, specifications and everything else necessary to the direction of the work. But we find now that contracts entered into are re-interpreted by the lawyers and that the Department of the Minister of Justice has given an interpretation to the specifications and schedules which has the effect of altering the classification under these contracts-which contracts, be it remembered, were approved, made on the authority of the engineer in chief, presumably after consultation with the commissioners. The effect of this interpretation is to increase the cost of construction from $38,000 to $63,000 per mile. Why, then, does the engineer in chief, whose opinion as to the classification has thus been over-ruled, still retain his position? Why do the commissioners, who have let these contracts, still remain in charge of the work of construction? But there is worse than that; even after they knew the opinion of the Minister of Justice, they continued to let the rest of the contracts with the same specifications and the same quantities as in the other. What will be the effect in the cost of the road to the country?

You would be astonished if I told you it will cost the country nearly $300,000,000. Let me give the figures as nearly as possible. From Moncton to Winnipeg the distance is 1,803 miles. According to Mr. Lumsden, the engineer in charge of the works, the cost of that section will be $63,427 per mile, or a sum equal to $114,393,765. Now what interest will we have to pay during its construction, which will take seven years? For three years and a half the interest at three per cent will be about $10,000,000. Then we have to pay interest for seven years after construction, which will amount to $14,422,000. The Moncton, Winnipeg, Quebec and other terminals, according to a statement brought down by the Minister of Railways, will cost $5,600,000. We have no information what is likely to be the cost of the mountain section of 800 odd miles. I estimate it, and I think very moderately, at $70,000 to $80,000 per pule. We guarantee 75 per cent of that, or three-fourths of the whole amount is guaranteed by us. The interest which we will have to pay on that alone will be without doubt $7,500,000. The loan is $10,000,000. The amount we guarantee for bonds on the mountain section will be nearly $50,000,000, and on the prairie section, $11,908,000. On the Quebec bridge we have already lost about $7,000,000, and I estimate the probable cost of reconstruction and of terminal facilities at Quebec at $15,000,000. Now the Minister of Railways brought down a return from Mr. Schreiber which ought to give us

the most accurate information in reference to the prairie section, and we have a right to rely upon it in considering the $10,000,000 which we are asked to advance to the company. So far as I can make out from the figures returned by Mr. Schreiber, he estimates that the mountain section commences 916 miles west of Winnipeg, and that it extends 800 odd miles to the coast. Now the cost of the prairie section of the road, if you can take the information which is furnished by Mr. Schreiber, is in the neighbourhood of $30,000 a mile. Add the $10,000,000 which we are giving for the purpose of finishing the road up to the end of the 960 miles, and the cost will be in the neighbourhood of $35,000 per mile at least. So here is a road which the engineers of the government, and which the government themselves, told parliament when they entered into the contract with the Grand Trunk Pacific, would cost the country $16,000 per mile, and we now find that it is going to cost $35,000 per mile. I will not deal here with the advisability of advancing the $10,000,000, as there is a resolution on the Order Paper which will call for a full dis-cusion of that question, and all the details regarding it. The mountain section is the only part of the road where we have accurate information as to the probable cost. I regret that the government have not yet brought down the return moved for by my hon. friend from Simcoe (.Mr. Lennox), in which a comparison is made between the quantities estimated by the engineers on which the contracts were let, and the estimates allowed to the contractors on a good many sections already let. It would be interesting to see how they compare. I have seen information in regard to the quantities which shows that the portions of the road which have been contracted for are going to cost double the amount which was originally estimated, owing to the fact that the government engineer had not been left to follow his own judgment, the resident engineers have not been left to follow their own judgment, in the matter of classifying the work. Now this is a serious matter. Now why do you retain in office men who make an estimate, who prepare your classifications, who draw your contracts, and yet who make such a bungle in the classifications? They ought to be at least qualified to draw up contracts and see that the classifications are right. Why is there such bungling in the administration of the commission? On some of the contracts the work is going to cost double. The engineer himself has increased the estimate from $48,000 to $63,000. The quantities should have been accurate, the information should be correct, and according to the information which I have in reference to that matter, I should judge that the cost of that road will be largely in excess of what is estimated by the engineer, even at the present moment.

What is our position? We have liabilities of nearly $300,000,000 in connection with this road. You may laugh, and say the amount will not be nearly that. I say it will come up to nearly $300,000,000. The liabilities of the people of Canada with regard to that road are enough to stagger any man who looks the matter squarely in the face. What likelihood, or what security, is there that the Grand Trunk will ever work that road from Winnipeg down to Moncton? The promise of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway company is equal to their ability of performance. Can they do it? Look how their loan was floated the other day. See how their securities have been received upon the market. They cannot raise money for the purpose of building or extending the road. They were obliged to come to the government of the country for assistance to the extent of $10,000,000. What security have we that the Grand Trunk Pacific will go on and operate the road? It depends entirely on whether that road is a going concern able to earn the revenue necessary to keep running and pay a certain amount of interest. What security have we? No security at all. The security of the second bondholders ranks before that of the last advance of $10,000,000 which we are making to the company.

Now, let us come to the Intercolonial Railway. We have dealt with that question again and again in this House. There is always some excuse given from time to time why this road does not pay. I remember that at the time when I was Minister of Railways and Canals different corporations approached the government with the view of leasing the road. The minister complains that the rates are so low that they cannot possibly pay. The parties who were willing to lease that road undertook to guarantee the same rates which were then in force on the Intercolonial, not as high as those at present, because Mr. Blair, when he was Minister of Railways raised the rates beyond what they were in my time. There were corporations at that time willing to take over the road, maintain the rates then in existence and pay a handsome sum per annum to the government of the country. What is the financial position of the road? Let me take this statement as it is set down by the Minister of Railways and Canals himself in his own report: The expenditure

on construction account on the Intercolonial Railway up to the 1st December last was $77,673,000. The deficit between revenue and working expenses on the Intercolonial Railway since it started has increased to $8,250,000. Add $8,250,000 to the $77,673,000 and you have nearly $86,000,000. To this is to be added the Cape Breton Railway, the Oxford and New Glasgow Railway, the Eastern Extension Railway, and other railways amounting to $9,750,727; or, on construction account, $87,127,000. Then,

add the amount of cash which was paid out of the consolidated fund of the country for the purpose of making up the difference between the revenue and working expenses of $8,250,000 and you have $95,000,000. Ninety-five million dollars added to the amount which the minister says the railway at the present time is behind and the possibilities of another capital expenditure will leave .independently of the Prince Edward Island altogether, an amount of $100,000,000 expended on the Intercolonial Railway since it was undertaken by the people of this country. We have heard statements as to the beautiful prospects of the future -equip the road, give us large locomotives, increase the strength of the bridges, put heavier ties upon the road, let us use modern methods in operating the road and we will show you results; then the Intercolonial Railway will come out of the woods, it will no longer be a back number, it will no longer do business on the back street, if it is improved the result will redound to the benefit of Canada! Every year the promise has been made that the result will be better next year but still we find this state of affairs on the Intercolonial. Times are bad, they say, upon the railways in the different sections of the country at the present time. Two or three years ago they were not bad. Every railway on the continent of America was prosperous and paying dividends except the Intercolonial, under the management of the hon. gentleman who sits opposite me here, and it is getting worse and worse. What is the result at the present time?-the result that was dreaded by the people of the maritime provinces, the result that was foretold by the hon. gentlemen on this side of the House, that they would be obliged to part with the road, that no longer would the people of the country submit to the enormous expenditure above receipts for the purpose of continuing its operation. But the minister says: Oh, I would make things all right if they would allow me to fix the tariff on the road. The hon. member for Westmoreland (Mr. Emmerson), made the statement that the tariff for local purposes was one quarter lower than upon other roads. Notwithstanding that statement, the people of the maritime provinces pay, for everything except a few articles which I shall mention, as high rates for the carriage of their goods as are paid by people in any other part of the country. The minister made some comparisons with reference to haulage per ton per mile m connection with which he presented some of the most alarming figures that I have ever heard. I understand the question of haulage per ton per mile. Where you haul for 25 miles your rate per ton per mile is larger than where you are hauling for fifty miles, and the same thing applies to where you are hauling for a hundred miles. Where you have a full carload it is less per ton per Mr. J. a. HAGGART.

mile comparatively than where you have part of a carload only. The only thing that the minister's figures prove is that he is using too much haulage power, that he is running trains without carrying freight upon them or without carrying passengers; in short, that he is running trains in excess of the requirements of the traffic. He sends out a train with half the load that it ought to carry and then he makes a comparison with other roads.

Mr. ARMSTRONG.

To keep the men employed.

Mr. JOHN HAGGART.

Too many men. When I came into the management of the Intercolonial Railway I found a state of affairs something like that which at present exists on the road. The idea of making comparisons as to the number of men per mile employed on that road with another road without comparing the amount of business done is the most absurd thing I ever heard of. What is the use of saying that the Intercolonial has only the same number of men as a certain other road if you do not tell us the amount of business that is done by each road? The Intercolonial Railway only earns altogether a little over $9,000,000 per year. Another road, with the same mileage and performing the same service, may be earning four times that amount, or $36,000,000 per year. What is the use of making a comparison as to the number of men employed on the road? What I was going to say was this. When I took charge of the Intercolonial I found a state of affairs existing similar to that which exists to-day, and that a number of people were employed in connection with the road more for political purposes than for anything else. They got so that the officials of the road dare not discharge them or interfere with them, and the power was not with the heads of the road, but with a political agent as is the case now. I found that at Moncton there were 1,200 men more than were requisite for running the shops, and they were dismissed.

Mr. EMMERSON.

By you?

Mr. HAGGART.

Yes, by me; nearly 1,200 men.

Mr. EMMERSON.

In what year?

Mr. HAGGART.

About 1894, if I remember rightly.

Mr. EMMERSON.

1,200 dismissed?

Mr. HAGGART.

Yes, there were over 1,200 dismissed from the road. I had to endure all kinds of trials in connection with it. The Minister of Justice of the day, I remember, if he only knew who recommended the dismissal of these people he would decapitate them. But, there is no doubt you have to exercise a firm hand. Every railway man laughs at the excess of

27X7

men employed by the Intercolonial. Look at the grand description of the shops of which the people of the country are asked to be proud, greater shops than the Canadian Pacific Railway have, and built for the accommodation of the Grand Trunk Pacific. Mind you, eight or nine years before that road reaches its destination. I venture to say that the locomotives required for the Intercolonial can be purchased for less than they can be manufactured for in these shops. Now, a few words in reference to the capital account.

At six o'clock the House took recess.

After Recess.

The House resumed at eight o'clock

Mr. LENNOX.

I would suggest the advisability of leaving this Bill and the next one, to incorporate the Royal Canadian Accident Insurance Company, in the committee until we have before us the other Bill of which I spoke the other day, owing to the danger of confusion in names.

Mr. FIELDING.

I understand the Bill referred to has not yet been introduced. Besides I think there may be shades of difference and an argument that might apply in reference! to one might not apply in reference to another. If there is any objection to the names perhaps the better course would be to refer the Bills back to the committee for further consideration. There seems to be no question but the title and I have no views on the matter myself.

Mr. LENNOX.

I would not want to do that, because there is no special difficulty with regard to these two. I think if we had the Royal Life Insurance Company and ilie Royal Insurance Company these two would infringe on the rule. When we come to consider these two I would not like to be hampered by the fact that we had passed these two Bills.

Mr. PERLEY.

As I understand the feeling in the Committee on Banking and Commerce is that no company shall have the exclusive right to any particular name providing the difference is such that an ordinary person can understand it. As to the suggestion to change the name of Royal Victoria Life Company to the Royal Life, there is now a Royal Insurance Company doing a fire and life business. That would not appear to me to be a reasonable change. There is as much difference between the names of the companies now under consideration as there has been between names of similar character which have come up from time to time in the committee. If the the committee is to pursue any different

policy, and the House directs them to do so, we will be glad to follow instructions.

Mr. J. A. CURRIE.

I objected to the name last night because I had a communication from one of the agents of the Royal Insurance Company objecting to the use of the name 'Royal.' He said representations had been made to him by the general agent of the Royal in Montreal. I wrote last night to the general agents in Montreal. Apparently they were not aware of the fact that they could appear before the committee of this House and object to the Bill. I think the minister's suggestions to refer the Bill back is an excellent one. I shall write the general agents of the Royal Fire Insurance Company in Montreal and if they wish to come before the committee and make objection they should be heard. Many Bills affecting outside companies come before the committee and the parties vitally interested are not notified. Many foreign fire companies carrying on fire business here are not allowed to carry on casualty business and so they procure a charter for casualty business in Canada and call it, for instance, the Royal Casualty Company of Canada; but it is generally understood among people doing casualty business that in the case of a Canadian company with a name similar to that of an old country company the risks are underwritten by the old country company. If a company with the name 'The Royal Casualty Company of Canada,' was permitted to carry on business here, every one having a casualty risk would immediately arrive at the conclusion that the Royal Insurance Company of England was behind that company and therefore we should know definitely if the Royal Company is promoting any of these Bills. If it is we should give them a charter and let them carry on business, but if it is some one else seeking a charter with the name of the Royal I think it would be very wrong to give them the use of the name. If the Bill is referred back and the parties do not appear before the committee, they have themselves to blame if we give the name to some one else.

Mr. MILLER.

This matter was threshed out in the committee. I quite agree with the remarks of the hon. member for Argen-teuil (Mr. Perley). There is undoubtedly a great difference in the names of these two companies. As the hon. member (Mr. Perley) has said, we should be careful when a company comes before the Banking and Commerce Committee seeking to change its name from the Royal Victoria Life Insurance Company to the Royal, so that if we granted the charter we would have the Royal Insurance Company doing a fire and life business and the Royal Life Insurance Company doing a life business. I would object to that as misleading the

people, but there is a great difference between the name of the Eoyal Casualty and Surety Company of Canada and that of the Eoyal Canadian Accident Company. So far as the Eoyal Insurance Company of Liverpool is concerned, Mr McCarthy appeared in its behalf_ before the Banking and Commerce Committee when these two Bills were considered and made his objections. The committee fully con sidered the whole matter and decided that as the Eoyal Insurance Company of Liverpool is not doing an accident business and cannot possibly be permitted to do it, there was no reason why these two Bills should not pass. It would be unwise therefore to refer them back to that committee and cause unnecessary delay. The hon. member for Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) has mentioned the Bill of the Eoyal Victoria Life Insurance Company, which will probably come before us, and says he would have the strongest objection to the word 'Victoria,' being struck out. I quite agree with him, but it is nci necessary, in order to avoid that, that we should hold up these two Bills.